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The Tiber valley at Rome is a deep trough, from 1 to 3 km wide, cut into the soft tufa floor of the river's lower basin. The edges of the trough are formed by steep weathered cliffs, seamed and even ...
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The Tiber valley at Rome is a deep trough, from 1 to 3 km wide, cut into the soft tufa floor of the river's lower basin. The edges of the trough are formed by steep weathered cliffs, seamed and even isolated by tributary streams. In this way the famous hills of Rome were formed: the Caelian (see caelius mons), Oppian, *Esquiline, *Viminal, and *Quirinal were flat-topped spurs, while the *Capitol, *Palatine and *Aventine were cut off from the main hinterland. (For the Oppian see esquiline; it was not counted as one of the *Seven hills of Rome.) On the valley floor itself the river meanders in an S-shaped curve, the northern twist containing the Campus Martius and skirting the Vatican plain, the southern curve skirting the Capitol, *forum Boarium, and Aventine, and enclosing Transtiberim, a smaller plain at the foot of the Janiculan ridge. Just below the middle of the S-curve the river runs shallow and divides at Tiber island. The ford here was the only feasible crossing-point between Rome and the sea, or for many miles upstream; so hills and spurs provided the natural strongholds suitable for defended settlement, and traffic across the heavily populated Latian plain concentrated at the Tiber ford, which was to be the key to Rome's predominance.

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